Amazon.com's Best of 2001

In accompaniment with the exhibition held by the National Gallery of Canada comes Gustav Klimt: Modernism in the Making. This powerhouse of a book spans the life and work of the famousAustrian painter who is well-known, even now, for his dramatic work,"The Kiss." This beautiful tome includes four chapters, by fourdifferent art historians, on the background and importance of Klimt'swork, plus two sections devoted to the works in the exhibition,including a page of detailed commentary on each of the paintings.

As a student, Klimt was trained in the decorative arts. He quickly became known for his blending of both high and low art styles, a rather controversial movement at the turn of the century. His graphic shapes and colors became one of his signatures and hold his paintings together like sublime art nouveau glue. Though popular enough at the time tohave been commissioned to create murals and friezes for grandbuildings, Klimt did not escape public criticism for the heavy sexualcontent of his work. Klimt's symbolic paintings about life and deathare full of images of nude women, young, old or pregnant, and couplesand groups intertwined. These colorful, sensual, and elegant paintingsremain fascinating symbols of fin-de-siècle Europe. --J.P. Cohen ... Read more

Reviews (3)

judd rocks
i bought this book cause i didnt really know anything about donald judds work. he had been mentioned to me at school, and after getting this book i am blown away by judds works. this book is filled with incredible pictures of his sculpture, if you ever get the chance, go see this stuff in real life, its even more amazing !

review of Donald Judd Colorist
A book which offers an exploration of an often neglected aspect of Judd's oeuvre, this series of essays questions the long-standing acceptance of critical writing regarding Judd's work in particular and Minimalism in general. Expanding his role as more than a strict formalist, these writers portray Judd as a sensualist and illusionist. Pointing out Judd's beginnings as a painter, and Judd's own pronouncements that he considers himself to be a painter, the collection of essays denies the limited definition of Judd's work offered by most critical writing as strictly formal, anti-illusionist, geometric, repetitious, and industrial in manufacture and material. Instead, these writers note the highly reflective surfaces of brass or aluminum Judd employs to effectively dissolve the forms themselves through their multiple reflections of adjacent surfaces.

Judd's use of color is emphasized through comparisons with the late career pasted papers of Matisse. The concept is offered that when Judd cuts the colored plexiglass so often incorporated in his work, he is literally cutting color the way Matisse did his colored paper cut-outs. Many of Judd's box sculptures utilize reflected color from the translucent plexiglass that often gives the smooth metal surfaces the illusion of being painted.

Fittingly, Judd himself is given the final word. In his essay "Some aspects of color in general and red and black in particular" (1993), Judd discusses in introductory terms his obviously complex color theories, influenced by years of research into the writings of theorists and other artists. Interestingly enough, Judd spends a good deal of time discussing his use of space, which he claims as largely uncharted territory, except in his own work. This focus on the spatial aspect of Judd's work is somewhat at odds with the other essayist's insistence on color as a dominant feature of Judd's oeuvre.

Judd reveals his concept of red and black as a two-color monochrome, and other ideas of how colors and values may be thought of in pairs. Judd states that he had difficult decisions to make for his late polychrome objects, as he wanted the color combinations to be neither harmonious nor disharmonious, but rather have them all "present at once."

If colour is the Question ?
Donald Judd has always showed colors in a different perspective, using canvas that you can almost smell, touch and fall in love with These book its a master piece that will make all your sences explode. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

A FRESH LOOK AT KLIMT'S WOMEN
This small volume is almost a tapestry of the vibrant colors the artist used in his unparalleled depictions of women. Termed by some the enfant terrible of turn-of-the-century Vienna, his work nonetheless often represented the confounding relationship between artist and society women at that time.

A lifelong bachelor and known profligate, Klimt was eclectic in his tastes, showering his favors upon wealthy patrons as well as poor models.

Although still a controversial figure, letters that have come to light in recent years allow the author to reexamine Klimt's relationships and offer readers a fresh look at the paintings inspired by these women. ... Read more

Reviews (4)

Good
Novelists have always loved artists, and artists have always loved novelists. They love and admire the other's talent, but--most important--they are not competitors. Crichton's love of Johns' workcertainly comes forth, and Johns' seemed flattered that a best-sellingnovelist, and not an art professor, wanted to do a book on him. That mutualadmiration underlies why this is such a solid book.

Probably as good as possible--without being intrusive
The author well restrained himself from "digging into the painful childhood" that produced such an unusually remote "negator of impulses."He brought out the positive aspects of Johnspersonality--his ability to laugh at himself and not always to take himselftoo seriously."His work is a constant negation of impulses"said the critic..."wouldn't you say so Jasper?""NO"says Jasper, laughing.Jasper can laugh.That is nice.The authorrespected his need for privacy in his personal life.He presented a verydifficult, complex personality with dignity, humor, and good taste.

Probably as good as possible--without being intrusive
The author well restrained himself from "digging into the painful childhood" that produced such an unusually remote "negator of impulses."He brought out the positive aspects of Johnspersonality--his ability to laugh at himself and not always to take himselftoo seriously."His work is a constant negation of impulses"said the critic..."wouldn't you say so Jasper?""NO"says Jasper, laughing.Jasper can laugh.That is nice.The authorrespected his need for privacy in his personal life.He presented a verydifficult, complex personality with dignity, humor, and good taste.

Jasper Johns: Interesting.
Jasper Johns is a very large, and expensive book. It has many illestrations, and lots of commentary. This is a Crichton that has faded into the background, and in some cases can be very hard to find. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

Great content and amazing layout design
Wonderful display of Klein's work and great indepth content. A must buy for a fan of Yves Klein! ... Read more

Reviews (1)

Dignity captured.
A wonderful book of eighty-five, beautifully printed, Dorothea Lange photos. I think the best ones are forty-seven from the thirties when Lange was part of a small group of photographers employed by the Government to record the plight of the rural poor. Their output (now in the Library of Congress and accessible to all) was the most complete photographic record of a nation ever undertaken. Lange and Walker Evans were, depending on your point of view, the most talented of this group and you can see why by looking at her photos in this book. Keith Davis says in the introduction... "Her photographs are at once bluntly factual and deeply sympathetic. While Lange recorded innumerable scenes of destitution, she consistently evoked the resilience, faith and determination of her subjects". I think her point-of-view comes across in all the work shown in this book. After the thirties the remaining photos cover her work up to 1958.

All the photos have dated captions and many have background information about what is being shown plus the thoughts of Lange and her subjects. The back of the book has a chronology, bibliography and print source. This is a lovely record of her photographic work but if you want to know more, these two books take a comprehensive look at her life, 'Dorothea Lange: American Photographs' by Therese Heyman, Sandra Phillips and John Szakowski and 'Dorothea Lange: Photographs of a Lifetime' by Robert Coles.

BTW, this is the second book of American images I have reviewed in the last few days, the other one was a selection of photos taken over a number of years by British photographer Nick Waplington of a small town in New Mexico called Truth or Consequences (also the books title) but what a contrast, the Lange book has captions and other information, the photographer's thoughts, chronology, bibliography, sources while Waplington's book has none of this, not even page numbers! It raises questions (least to me) about how publishers regard their readers. ... Read more

Book Description

Now available in paperback, this illuminating work examines the fascinating bond between music and painting in Paul Klee’s art. ... Read more

Reviews (2)

The paintings, drawings, and philosophy of Klee
This beautifully illustrated and wonderfully informative monograph is devoted to the reasonable (and wholly accepted) thesis that Paul Klee's dedication to, and love for, musical forms informed his prolific life in art, specifically drawing and painting. Duchting has chosen illustrations that consistently reinforce his assertions. The commentary is smart, informed, and lively. Even if you dozed in Art History, this book is excellent. Duchting has done his homework, consulting Klee's own (published) diaries, notebooks, and sketchbooks, and the extensive writings of Klee friend and biographer Will Grohmann, and additional early biographers. In addition Duchting has spent a lot of time looking at the paintings themselves. Some of Klee's incredible lecture notes (which you must see to believe) from his years of teaching art are included, as are several quick drawings and works of artists who were associated with Klee.

This book has terrific production values. The paper is good,and the approximately 100 color reproductions are exquisite. Photographs of Klee, his wife Lily, and his studio. Page layout is a visual treat. It's really a gem of a book, right down to the lemon-yellow endpapers. There is a a short biography, pages of good endnotes, and a 'Selected Bibliography' (page 111).

poliphony and rhythm in colour
This book is a very good introduction to the artistic work of Paul Klee. The author explains in easy and helpful manner how the music influenced the painting production of Klee. A carefully attention is given how Klee tried to reproduce musical concepts as poliphony and rhythm in his painting. The book is rich in good quality photos. The only lacks are the absence of a bibliography and Duechting doesn't tell any anectodes about Klee, because anectodes are very usefull to remember the works and the life of artists. I advice to read this book all people they are interesting in modern painting. ... Read more

Book Description

Born in 1945, the German painter Anselm Kiefer "represents the concerns and insecurities of postwar European intellectuals, confronted by a questionable past and a future so threatening that it tends to create despair." In this philosophical case study of Kiefer’s work, John C. Gilmour addresses a crisis that is common to twentieth-century art and aesthetic theory: the loss of confidence in the ideals and world view inherited from the Enlightenment. Modernism’s historical moment has passed, he claims, and Kiefer’s art—which was the subject of a recent national exhibition—reveals the contours of an emerging postmodern vision.

Considering the writings of Jameson, Foucault, Baudrillard, Lyotard, and Nietzsche, among others, Gilmour shows how Kiefer’s use of literary, mythological, and other cultural texts parallels the intertextual approach common among postmodern theorists. At the same time, the artist’s cosmological questioning adds a dimension lacking among many of postmodernism’s leading proponents. The author interprets Kiefer’s art as a site where distinctions between modern and postmodern senses of representation, history, cosmology, and nature become thematic. He addresses individual paintings—the book includes forty-four illustrations—and gives the historical, biographical, art-critical, and philosophical setting for each piece. ... Read more

Book Description

For his recent series of work entitled Easy Fun-Ethereal, Jeff Koons employs new computer technology to merge populist icons into desktop collages, which he then transforms into traditional oil paintings rendered with photorealist precision. Drawn from glossy magazines and advertisements, the imagery includes smiley-faced sandwiches, spiraling roller coasters, succulent lips and abstract juice splashes. These hybrids of fun and fantasy simultaneously celebrate childhood pleasures and adult sexual desire: in keeping with Koons's stated intention to "communicate with the masses," the cheerful works are accessible to all. Accompanying an exhibition of seven large-scale paintings commissioned for the Deutsche Guggenheim Berlin, this lively volume features 40 full-color reproductions. Art historian David Sylvester's interview with Koons puts forth the artist's perspective on his career to date, while Robert Rosenblum's essay provides an in-depth analysis of the technique and imagery employed in EasyFun-Ethereal. Essay by Robert Rosenblum.~Interview by David Sylvester. Hardcover, 11 x 8.25 in./80 pgs / 40 color 0 BW0 duotone 0 ~ Item D20385 ... Read more

Reviews (1)

For fellow Kollwitz worshippers...
For anyone out there who also worships Kaethe Kollwitz and her extraordinary work, this book is a must-read. Edited by the son that lived--Hans--"The Diary and Letters of Kaethe Kollwitz" provides an intimate portrait of the woman who lived behind the drawings in her own words. This book breathed life and personality into somebody who has been one of my greatest artistic influences. I found it exceptionally moving to be able to share her emotions, thoughts and tragedies in this way. ... Read more

Book Description

Anselm Kiefer and Art after Auschwitz examines the legacy of German-Jewish culture in the aftermath of the Holocaust. Positioning Kiefer as a deeply learned artist who encounters and represents history in painted, rather than written form, Lisa Saltzman contends that his work is unique among post-war German artists in his persistent exploration of the legacy of fascism. Formally, thematically, and philosophically, Kiefer's work probes the aesthetic and ethical dilemma of representing the unrepresentable, the historical catastrophe into whose aftermath the artist was born. Kiefer's work mediates the relationship between a deeply traumatic history that he, as a German born after World War II, and his post-Holocaust spectators cannot fully know, but to which his work bears witness and provides access. ... Read more

Book Description

One of the most transgressive of American photographers, Richard Kern makes brazen portraits of enticing nude women. But if his photographs easily cross over into the world of pornography, they are distinguished from prosaic porn by their beauty and, more importantly, their treatment of voyeurism as a theme. As Kern once said, "The best part of anything is watching," and through his photographs, he not only seduces the viewer into looking but forces a subsequent recognition of his or her own voyeurism. This publication presents a new series of black and whitephotographs.

Essays by Geoff Nicholson and Sabina Spada.

Paperback, 180 pages, 150 b&w images. ... Read more

Reviews (4)

Black, White, and Noir
This volume could also be called 'The Best of Richard Kern' as it presents a review of his work ranging from 1976 to 2001. Covering a wide range, we find bondage shots and girls with guns, as well as girls in the bedroom, bathroom and other scenarios, presenting an overview of Kern's interests and low-key fetish work.

Perhaps the strongest pictures are the close-up portrait shots, where the models reciprocate your gaze, as though daring you to enter their slightly dark and edgy world. In one shot, a small lizard crawls over a model's face, in the stark monochrome looking almost like a tribal tattoo. Most striking is the picture from 1993, simply titled 'Monica with Candle'. The model tilts her head backward and a lighted candle protrudes upright from her mouth. A very arresting picture the first time you see it (why that was not used on the cover is a mystery. Too provocative maybe?) Certainly a deeply erotic image.

Like all the best books of photography, this one starts well and gets better the more you look into it. A good one to keep on the bookshelf and delve into from time to time, and well worth buying.

Maybem, just be careful
Might be worth the price as long as you don't get it from used Marketplace seller, MORCAP, this person is a cheat, will take your money and not deliver the product

Noir? Perhaps in that it is all black and white. . .
Richard Kern here has presented a fine collection of photographs. Though his style, at least in this presentation, seems to be mostly snap shots of ameture models; there are some nice shots none the less.

The Light of Kern
As a young man I have been searching for the perfect woman and theres no such thing. But Kern captures both a meaningful persona and porcelain like femininate in his photography. And this book delivers all expected from Kern and more, its better than New York Girls and thats hard to do. This book deseves to be on even the Queen of Englands coffe table but I for one will keep it hidden away as a unsering boy may hide his chocolete easter eggs from his anoying sister. (ABLOL) ... Read more

Book Description

While most major museums in the United States and abroad hold examples of the German artist Anselm Kiefer's work, the nature and extent of his achievement are the subject of intense debate. This volume reproduces in full The Heavenly Palaces: Merkabah, an important large-scale artist's book created by Kiefer in 1990. Featuring highly evocative images beautifully reproduced here in full color, this work is accompanied by three penetrating essays by experts who approach the book from various perspectives, explicating its many layers of meaning to an unprecedented degree.The first essay deals impressionistically with the motifs and iconography of The Heavenly Palaces: Merkabah. The next treats its themes and meaning, concentrating especially on Jewish references and resonances, an especially challenging aspect of this German artist's oeuvre. In the final essay, the importance of the medium of photography is addressed by surveying its use by Kiefer since the beginning of his career. ... Read more

Book Description

Red Green Blue is almost the title of a 1963 painting by Ellsworth Kelly. Red Blue Green, a monumental rectangular oil work, considered a crucial fulcrum point in the artist's career, represents Kelly's concerns about the tension between the figure and the ground, offering two precisely shaped and balanced red and blue forms set against a strongly contrasting green ground. Working within a strict set of limits, he created a string of similarly grand, powerful works and defined many of the ideas about line, form, and color that still drive his work today. These works, made from the late 50s to the mid-60s, established the artist's singular style and his reputation as one of the most innovative abstract painters of the latter half of the 20th century, one who boldly broke with the strictures of the abstract expressionist movement, which dominated painting in the United States in the 50s. Exploring the complex interplay of invented and real-world inspirations that led to this body of figure/ground paintings, this volume presents a selection of 21 major paintings and 36 related drawings, collages, and photographs from that time period, as well as a new painting from 2002 that reexamines related concerns.
Instead of making a picture that was an interpretation of a thing seen, or a picture of invented content, I found an object and "presented" it as itself alone. --Ellsworth Kelly

Edited by Toby Kamps and Julie Dunn.
Essays by Roberta Bernstein and Sarah K. Rich, Toby Kamps and Dave Hickey.
Introduction by Hugh M. Davies.

Hardcover ,10 x 12 in. 128 pages, 82 color, 6 b/willustrations ... Read more

Reviews (1)

A true treasure!
Just finished reading this book and I found it to be one of the best all-encompassing views of Leonardo the man, artist, and inventor that I have read. Of course, it is not truly all-encompassing and covering all the details of Leonardo's life, but it covers the basics and gives a nice overall picture of the man and his works. It goes over topics like the extra hand with the knife in The Last Supper to whether or not he was homosexual. I also liked the photo of people in front of The Mona Lisa painting. I've been there and one can see the painting's features much better in a book with no reflections or distance between one and the painting. The book includes a nice selection of his paintings and sketches on glossy paper. This is a wonderful introduction to da Vinci and/or a lovely reminder of highlights of his life and work. ... Read more